This invention relates to a fishing case. More particularly, the invention relates to a lightweight, portable and ergonomically-designed fishing case that compactly stores one's fishing equipment.
When travelling on business, one often has the opportunity to go fishing. However, conventional fishing equipment is not easy to carry. In addition, when business brings the fisherman to a new, unknown fishing spot, the fisherman usually does not know what type of fishing will be available at that location and therefore does not know what type of equipment to bring. Because it is difficult to anticipate the type of fishing that will be available, the fisherman must bring additional equipment.
Even while at home, professional and amateur fishermen alike constantly seek that special fishing spot where the fish are plentiful and are always biting. Unfortunately, the best fishing spots are not always easily accessible by car. Thus, fishermen often find that they must carry all their fishing equipment to a remote fishing site.
In addition, transportation and storage of fishing rods and reels generally requires disassembly of the rods from the reels, enclosing the rods in rigid tubes and putting the reels in separate cloth bags or boxes. These tubes, bags, or boxes only accommodate a single rod or reel.
To overcome the inherent problem of carrying a numbers of bags, it has been suggested to construct carrying cases that can enclose the entirety of a fishing rod along with the reel. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,341,590 to Hepworth et al. discloses a rigid carrying case for a fly fishing rod along with the fly fishing reel. U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,874 to Vance discloses a soft sided carrying case for fishing poles. However, this carrying case is designed such that it can only contain a fishing rod and/or reel. As a result, fishermen are forced to carry their fishing accessories such as floats, fishing rod flies, bait and sunglasses in additional cases or bags. Alternately, a fisherman may wear a bulky fishing jacket comprising an excessive number of pockets for carrying his fishing accessories. The use of a fishing jacket by the fisherman has the disadvantage that the fisherman's ability to maneuver is severely restrained by the various accessories stored in the pockets of his fishing jacket.
While these units mentioned above may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as disclosed hereafter.